GRA-ZONE (gray zone)

2013-08-04T14:34:00.001-07:00

The future of pregnancy

2012-06-02T06:46:00.000-07:00

A soldier's new best friend: BigDog robotic military pack-mule

2012-05-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

BigDog is a robot controlled by an on-board computer developed by Boston Dynamics, along with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for the future military use to carry supplies for soldiers across uneven terrain that wheeled vehicles cannot easily negotiate and a range of weather conditions, including snow. Funding is through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

BigDog stands about 2.5 (0.76) feet high by three feet long (0.91 m) long, weighs 240 pounds (110 kg), and can carry up to 400 pounds of supplies or equipment up inclines up to 35 degrees. Most remarkably, it can regain its footing after being pushed and its independently placed feet allow it to negotiate narrow and difficult terrain. An 18 month testing period will begin this summer, prior to use by troops in the field.

Baby robot shows child development from the inside out

2012-05-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Researchers at Osaka University's Graduate School of Engineering have created "Child-robot with Biomimetic Body," or CB2 in order to better understand how children learn and develop. CB2 has a soft touchable body and responds like a 1-2 year old in movement and facial expression, giving an eerily accurate childlike impression when observed.

More importantly, from a research point of view, CB2 has sensors that are responsive to touch that will help us to understand how the feedback from touch helps a child learn to recognize the dimensions and abilities of his own body. CB2 also develops social skills by observing facial expression, and sorting them into categories such as "happy" or "sad". Additionally, response to language is tracked in ways far beyond learning to associate a repeated word with a particular object. As CB2 learns, his social and cognitive behavior changes and his movement adapts to incorporate the new knowledge, much as a child would.

Previously, research was necessarily based entirely on observation of children responding to stimuli. Never before has it been possible to observe the effect of touch and other stimulation on building intelligence and self-awareness from the inside out by seeing how the artificial brain, specifically designed to mimic a child's, adapts and changes to its environment.The research team hope to create a more sophisticated robot with the intelligence and responses of a three year old in a few years.

Scan me! Barcode and QR interactive tattoos

2012-05-03T17:13:00.001-07:00

Tattoo artists are constantly searching for a fresh and original ways for their clients to express themselves- and to stand out. New inking trends include light up tattoos and research into color changing and even emotion-sensing tattoos.

Barcode and QR tattoos started as a bit of an underground movement, sometimes to make some sort of philosophical statement about numbers, databases and general consumerism, or perhaps for their inherently ambiguous meaning prior to reading and (then) edginess due to their then rarity and cyber-crossover quality.

Classic barcode reads "Joe",
the bearers name

Newer QR tattoos are able to store much more information than the simple barcodes that started the trend. These barcodes are readable by any iPhone or QR scanner. The embedded information can be text, a URL or any other data.

Taking this one step farther tattoo artist, on June 16, 2011, Paris-based tattoo artist Karl Marc realized the world’s first animated tattoo which was featured in a You Tube video as part of a Ballantine's Whiskey advertising campaign. Scanning the tattoo makes it "come alive" with and animation that plays on your phone for a truly original effect.

Video of Animated Tattoo

Another artist developed a tattoo that touts itself as ‘the first random tattoo in the world,’ This tattoo generates random content every time it's scanned by a smartphone.

Perhaps, more usefully, someday we can easily change the QR code tattoo to contain whatever information would be most useful at that moment as sort of an ultra-portable source of personal data. For instance you could have your dental records available when you visited a new dentist for them to scan to saving filling out new patient forms, or keep emergency medical information such as blood type and drug allergies and medical history literally "on" you at all times in case of an accident .

Scan me! A new way to give out your contact info

As a social connector, your contact information could be scanned by new friends to instantly allow them to follow and link up with you on various social media. Indeed, one might no longer hope to get the traditional phone number in a club and instead aim to be offered to scan their tattoo.

Barcode tattoos:Now old-school interactivity
(seen here in the form of affordable
low commitment temporary tats)

Safeguards against security and privacy concerns, as well as the potential misuse of this technology as a way for governments to control, "brand", trace or segregate populations for their own purposes may be something that needs to be considered carefully as it becomes more available.

Video for the first random QR video

Amazing interactive windows

2012-05-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

Commanding the dancer at a Parisian boutique window

A passerby changes the image at the window at Repetto, a French boutique that sells ballet shoes. A tired traveler waves her hand to "grow" a tree across her city-view hotel window for privacy. Windows are getting more delightfully interactive with every passing year. On a more basic note, switchable windows, which change from clear to opaque at the touch of a button, are now widely available to consumers.

Interactive window display concept by Gustaf Engström

The future of hotel windows:

Personalized interactivity and light therapy to combat jet-lag

Video of interactive hotel window features

Switchable windows for privacy at the touch of a button

Oil spill-cleaning nanobots, explosive-sensing wetsuits- underwater micro-tech hits the beach

2012-05-02T16:06:00.002-07:00

Stretchy waterproof sensor
detects underwater explosives

Nanobots have long been considered for entering the bloodstream to combat disease, not unlike a more sophisticated version of the concept in the classic sci-fi movie "The Fantastic Voyage". They are even being taught be able to join together, "think" and act collectively as one larger entity, with one possible application being to be deployed individually through small cracks and then, once in, joining together into a larger entity to rescue victims of earthquakes or other disasters.

Now Joseph Wang, much-lauded professor of Nanoengineering at UC San Diego, has developed and is testing prototypes of the first nanobot designed to help clean up after oil spills.

The clean room in the Nanoengineering lab

These "microsubmarines" - about ten times smaller than the width of a human hair- require very little fuel and move ultra-fast. They have a "superhydrophobic" (water repellent and also very oil absorbing) coating which allows them to glide through the water and pick up oil. Tests show the cone-shaped microsubmarines can collect droplets of olive oil and motor oil in water and transport them through the water.

Wang has already been named on 15 separate patents, with wide ranging applications from microfabricated DNA "applicable for broad use in nucleic acid analysis, particularly for measurement of nucleic acids (e.g., DNA and RNA), and their sequences and interactions, and for detection of DNA damage", to flexible sensors that can be printed onto the fabric of wetsuits to detect underwater explosives.

Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico: environmental
and public relations disaster

The UCSD Nanoenigeneering Department also actively seeks to collaborate with industry and governmental partners that could benefit from the research and patents developed. Bearing in mind the both urgent importance of finding new tools to contain and eliminate oil spills, and the understandable corporate focus on not only protecting the environment, but also the public perception of the gas and oil industry; it seems likely that this technology will gain the interest and support it needs for full development to of its potential create another tool to combat environmental disasters.

Dr. Joe Wang

Dr. Wang explains the potential applications of nanotechnology

3D metal printing

2012-04-26T14:12:00.001-07:00

Printing a bicycle with a 3D printer

2012-04-26T14:09:00.001-07:00

Sure, you can print a bicycle on a 3-D copier! - but will it work when you try to ride it?

British engineers Chris Turner and Andy Hawkins take up a challenge to build a bike by using a 3-D copier. Their Airbike is made entirely of nylon – yes nylon – but it is supposedly as strong as steel. Although most printing is done using a plastic-like polymer, 3-D printing is now being done in many other media, including metal and glass.

Although the Airbike is just a prototype, the possibility of making custom bikes or simply printing spare parts (or upgrading!) when one needs replacement is intriguing. Musicians are already playing with the idea of customizable guitars, where one downloads open source specs and uses them to print custom parts on a home 3-D printer. One can imagine a vibrant online community will like soon exist, where people will offer now designs and tweak each others design ideas electronically.

Autodesk has a full-sized printed motorcycle in its San Francisco Design Gallery, however the chopper is printed with the considerably less hardy material frequently used for prototyping. Autodesk, maker of the ubiquitous AutoCAD software is a big player in the growing 3-D printing market, leading the market in design software for the emerging technology and even planning to open Kinkos-like 3-D printing retail outlets shortly. Home 3-D copiers should be available soon as printers are already being tested for mass marketing to the home consumer market in Europe.

Full-sized printed motorcycle with working gears,
courtesy Autodesk Design Gallery (Occupy San Francisco in background)

In artist Suzuki's world, lakes unzip and leaves wink at you as they fall...

2012-04-25T14:48:00.002-07:00

Boat shaped like a zipper (still here) makes its
wake the zippers teeth as it moves

The artist with his Arial Beings

Yasuhiro Suzuki, a 32 year old artist re-envisions mundane objects and experiences into something both fresh and fantastic. His work connects immediately an emotional basis and at the same time is thought provoking as he explores the boundaries between the animate and the inanimate.

Arial Beings drift over travelers in an air-themed
installation at Heneda Airport

Suzuki creates a magical world where falling leaves blink at you, zippers unzip lakes and cabbages lend you their leaves to use as bowls as his Arial Beings are freed from gravity to float along unseen movements of air on their own accord.

Suzuki has new book out, 'Blinking and Flapping' covering some of his recent works, that is available for international shipping through Amazon Japan.

Each of the leaves peels off to make an individual bowl

Zipper Boat from a distance

'Blinking and Flapping' focus is on the pieces shown at a major retrospective of his work that took place late last year at the Hamamatsu Museum of Art. Indeed, the body of water shown being "unzipped" is Lake Hamamatsu.

The zip measures 26 x 56 x 170cm, and is most effective seen from some distance and speed, where the widening wake from the boat creates the sense of the water being unzipped.

Standing under Blinking and Flapping

The falling leaves are printed with an open eye on one side and
a closed on the other, so they blink as they flutter around you

Google Drive (GDrive) launch expected today- with 5GB of free space

2012-04-24T13:19:00.001-07:00

Google's launch of it's long rumored Google Drive, is slated for today. Word of the release was leaked prematurely on the company's french blog.

Google Drive, or GDrive, announced it would launch offering a welcome 5GB of free cloudstorage space for consumers and inexpensive additional capacity, a move calculated to undermine market share of existing cloud storage competitors such as Dropbox, as curious consumers who might not have been initially willing to pay for cloud storage are willing to sign up with Drive to try it out. Presumably, they will develop a certain comfort with the Google system as their needs increase. The overall lower costs and reportedly easier format may tempt existing customers to switch as well.

Rival start up Dropbox, recently valued at 4 billion dollars, reportedly was scrambling to make file sharing easier in anticipation of the release this week and Microsoft has recently upgraded its Skydrive service. Despite its later entry into the field, behemoth Google is likely to make some ripples as competition ramps up.

Google's video of the Google drive features

"Look, Ma! No hands!" Blind man takes a spin in Google's self-driving car as Google prepares public for eventual release

2012-04-23T18:38:00.002-07:00

Steve Mahan, who is 95% blind, takes Google's self-driving car, a Prius, out for a spin- including a trip through a fast food drive-through and to pick up his laundry at the dry cleaners. This visually illustrates how self-driving could give him the freedom to navigate his life with the same convenience as a sighted person takes for granted. His drive was one of one of many that have totaled over 200,000 test miles logged by Google's self-driving cars on California roads. There have been no accidents during the driver-less operation of the cars, however there has been, ironically, one fender-bender on Google's private lot while under the the car was under the control of a human driver.

Not coincidentally, this is video release was timed as part of an increasing media campaign, that included California State Senator Alex Pedilla appropriately arriving in the state capital in a driver-less car for a press conference on the subject. This media campaign is meant to pave the road for consumer acceptance of the technology in advance of California's impending draft of legislation- based on similar legislation that has already been passed in Nevada, that would create safety road rules for self-driving cars and allow them to be legalized.

"...the way this would change my life is to give me the independence and the flexibility to go the places I would want to go and need to go when I need to do those things."

What if you could run as easily as walking?:Bionic exoskeletons

2012-04-23T00:21:00.000-07:00

Run on hard surfaces without knee or hip damage

Hugh Herr is a double amputee, an MIT professor and the founder of his own company, iWalk, and recognized as one of the leading innovators in the area of bionics. He was featured in Forbes magazine in December of 2009 for building and marketing the most advanced prosthetic foot in the world. His earlier prosthetic invention, the Rheo Knee, was licensed and commercially launched in 2004 and currently has 20% market share.

Herr talks talks about the future
of bionics and the currently available technologies in the video below. These included exobionics (worn outside the body as an exoskeleton), including the one he recently invented and patented for able-bodied persons to allow them to run on hard surfaces without damaging their knees and hips. This trend is not lost on sports giant Nike, which has already designed its own branded prosthetic, perhaps to establish its place early in the likely newly emerging bionic and sports prostheses niche markets.

Nike's branded prosthetic leg

He also showcases another bionic exoskeleton in the video, one that corrects the drop-footed gait that often results from stoke- again not for amputees. His own leg will be soon be linked to his nervous system to allow him not only to walk on the beach, but to feel the sand through his bionic limbs.

Testing the new exoskeleton prototype in the lab

According to a post dated May 2011 by Frank Moss, Director of MIT's Media Lab through 2011, Herr is also applying what they have learned developing designs for robotic prostheses for amputees to building ultra-lightweight “exoskeletons” that everyone could wear.

The goal is to allow a person to run with the same level of metabolic expenditure as walking. This could really change the world of human mobility. Think about “exo-running lanes” on streets and highways, and new “exo-sports.”

The paper released on this research describes the mechanism in the leg as "the spring is intended to store energy at heel-strike which is then released when the heel leaves the ground, reducing the effort required by the quadriceps to exert this energy, thereby reducing the metabolic cost of running."

Herr with Aimee Mullins

The idea is to allow people to move quickly with minimal effort.“They won’t need parking lots,” says Dr Herr. “People can run straight into their offices, remove their mobility platform, as if they were undressing, and then hang it right on their coat rack.”

Herr: A view into the wild future of bionics

Microsoft in 2019 concept video

2012-04-21T18:45:00.001-07:00

Judging the comments following this video, it's easy for naysayers to dismiss this as too far advanced to exist by 2019. Realistically though, new technologies are coming to market at exponential rates.

Original iPhone (June, 2007)

One has only to consider how one would respond to being asked go backwards proportionally and revert to using the now unthinkably slow and clunky-seeming technologies of 2003 to realize how rapidly technology is evolving. How easy it is to forget the now-ubiquitous iPhone wasn't introduced until 2007.

For example, the technology shown in the beginning of this video with the children using simple graphics that act out logical consequences (in this case the drawn dog chasing the ball) is based on existing interactive digital white board technology being currently developed at MIT's Media Lab and reported earlier in this blog as being primed to be snatched up for commercial development.

Switchable glass - change from clear to opaque at the touch of a button

2012-04-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

Man shows off his new electric switchable glass windows

Holographic TV coming in 2012

2012-04-21T17:10:00.001-07:00

Current 3-D TV technology causes eyestrain due to the way that it forces your eyes to focus in an unnatural way- actually on the flat screen, while your eyes normally would focus either in front or behind the screen using the natural focal mechanics we have evolved when we process depth. This is the case either with or without using #-D glasses . Because of these issues, warnings have been issued that young children should not be watching 3-D TV at all and even adults are prone to eyestrain.

Could we be watching the iconic, then fantasy holographic
projection in Star Wars as a real holograph later this year?

In order to counter these issues, manufacturers are currently developing holographic television as a healthier more natural alternative. Holograms project an image that appears to converge in the space in front of the viewer that would be appropriate for the effect they are trying to project. In effect, the image is actually floating outside the television and therefore is perceived in the natural way depth is normally understood by human eyes.

One of the challenges is, that in order to create a holographic 3-D effect, these new holographic TVs must create the illusion of a floating image at a unique spot in front of each viewer. In order to do this, interference patterns project light that converges in front of the viewer. This is achieved by tracking each of the viewers eyes to know exactly where they are looking at every moment and adjusting the interference patterns accordingly. Currently, technology exists to track up to four pairs of eyes simultaneously.

The current prototypes, while fascinating, are still riddled with problems (see video below to see a proroty demonstrating how holographic TV will work). Manufacturers, however ,must feel that these technical issues can be overcome in fairly short order as they have announced plans to release a real holographic television for sale in 2012.

Current holographic TV prototype and future plans

Sadly, despite the uber-cool appearance, not an actual holographic TV

Other companies have released what they are caOther companies have released what they are calling falsely "holographic television", however it is really an image projected onto a sheet of suspended glass especially manufactured for that purpose. Certainly this gives a wonderfully sleek, modern effect with the picture appearing to float in midair,(see video below) but it doesn't solve the problems inherent with current 3-D technologies. As it seems that holographic TV will soon be the new standard, it might not be the best long-term option for purchase unless your goal is more for incorporating the undeniably cool visual effect in your decor, than for regular viewing.

Video of projection TV falsely claiming to be holographic

Giant holographic Nessie in Tokyo Bay

Currently, holographs are being used with dramatic effect to put on hugely popular virtual concerts, largely in Japan, by completely animated pop stars- known as vocaloids- for videoconferencing and even for publicity stunts such as projecting a giant holographic Loch Ness Monster rising out of Tokyo Bay as a movie. promotion.

Fans go wild for sexy holographic Vocaloid star Miku at concert

Food for thought: Living in a cloned meat future: Considering the far reaching societal effects of a world without farm animals

2012-04-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

Image by artist: Justin M Maller

The sampling of the first cultured meat burger took place yesterday. The two tasters selected pronounced it to be texturally like meat, but too low in fat for ideal flavor.
Experts estimate we're ten years away from tweaking the composition for taste and production methods to reach a reasonable price point before it will be available to consumers. This seems an appropriate time to reprint some musings from last year, when a worldwide focus on creating a cuitured meat slaughter-free alternative was spured by a prize offered by animal rights group, PETA. This, along with commitment to funding research by the Dutch government with the goal of dominating this future global market by leading in the early development (and patenting) of the process, led to the burger we saw this week. Following are some possible implications over the longer term.

Vat-grown "cultured meat" is coming soon.. The first hamburger is expected to be produced next year in the Netherlands, led by Professor Mark Post of Maastrich University, and production of pork sausage isn't far behind. PETA is offering a million dollar reward for the production of a palatable chicken nugget replacement. There have been three meetings of the international In Vitro Meat Symposium, where the world-wide coordination of research was discussed as an important goal. Research programs are being considered or funded by governments around the world, including by Brazil, a top beef producer; and private companies (often in the area of organ replacement research, which has technological overlaps) are examining or adding this as a new potential profit center.

The long-term possible implications for the world go far beyond our diet, encompassing global warming, pollution and possibly creating huge social shifts as land becomes more available.

To produce cultured meat there will still have to be donor herds, and boutique artisan real meat producers will undoubtedly still exist, but the days of seeing grazing herds in the countryside as a matter of course could cease to be a part of the human experience for the first time in human history since we evolved from hunter -gatherer societies. As any source protein could be replicated, also for the first time in human history, fishing could practically cease to exist other than as for as a sport or hobby.

What the permanent loss of this connection to all of the previous generations of humanity will bring with it is a subtle and perhaps unknowable question. What we can be reasonably sure of is that it will have at least as substantial a societal impact as our freeing ourselves from animals as a primary form of transportation with the invention of the combustion engine just over a hundred years ago.

Perhaps the change will be even more resonant, as having already lost the transportation aspect, by additionally losing the association of herd animals as a food source, we will have severed our last connection to farm animals other than as pets or exotic rarities.

Each aspect leads to a new potential chain of likely societal changes. Consider the 70% of arable land currently being devoted to grazing- what will the sudden availability of so much previously occupied space do to the form of society and our economy? The normal economic forces of supply and demand would logically result in vastly reduced and therefor theoretically more universally available and better quality land at all levels of society. Importing agricultural items may no longer make economic sense with so much land freed up from grazing. Certainly, competition should be fierce and prices in decline.

Just as the substantial reduction of the European population was perhaps the greatest catalyst for the Renaissance and blossoming of ideas and social change that followed, this social class reshuffling could have long and far-reaching implications.

And what will be done with this land? Farming it for agricultural purposes might serve to feed the people that live on that land, but the vast availability of land would seem to naturally reduce the evolution of large agricultural uses. Who would willingly work as labor on someone else’s farm if they could instead have their own?

Perhaps smaller extended-family compound-style agrarian groups will form to share and divide tasks. Again, it’s a nod to the micro village-centered past, but adapted for the future. If this is indeed the way things develop, it would require a massive change for large-scale factory crop production to adapt to continue to be relevant. With multiple close-by sources of produce all competing , the entire marketplace will be altered.

And, if the large-scale farming is substantially reduced, what will this mean in the implications of being able to produce large quantities of crops for operations like alternative fuels, and in the lack of need for shipping and trucking that this will naturally create.

As it stands, manufacturing will soon be local and no longer require any specialized machining due to the 3D copy technology that is already being slated for mass access. This should logically result in a waning need to transport manufactured goods as well. Our seas would not only have few fishing vessels due to cloned fish availability, but also would have little need for container shipping for manufactured goods. This may result in the closing or re-purposing of port towns as they compete for the remaining reduced shipping and fishing business. Countries that base their economies on food or manufacturing export could find themselves struggling for viability and ports towns that have existed for centuries may shrink to obscurity if they can't find new ways to continue to be relevant and viable economically and culturally.

In another strange divergence, this turn towards cultured meat seemingly directly opposes an ever-growing momentum towards natural, organic, locally-grown smaller more personal and human-scaled food sources. People are increasingly concerned about verifying the source and purity of their food and wanting a personal relationship with the source when possible. The village-level connection of a wine tasted with the maker at the winery, bread bought from the hands that baked it, a conversation with the farmer who grew the produce are increasingly valued. Also there’s a distinct movement towards a direct connection with the food itself; so much so in fact, that suburban chicken coops have become commonplace, even trendy.

Is this desire for small-scale human contact a reaction to the newly effortless ability to have anonymous instant contact with the world through technology, when we are likely more naturally wired for intimacy of human-to-human level contact? Perhaps it’s a renewed need for the nostalgia or reassurance of simple face-to-face, village-scale contact to balance the largely mind-based friendships on the net. If so, this may validate the additional effort required to go to the direct source of a product, as lack of anonymity becomes rarer and more therefor more valuable. If so, what might this new society - with one of its feet firmly in the macro and the other just as planted in the micro- look like?

Change is inevitable, but the speed and essential social fabric altering scope of that change is increasing exponentially. It seems wise to step back for a moment and consider we want this future to look like if we want some hope of directing and shaping that change.

I was discussing this broadly with a friend, who works in an area that encourages considering future social changes from technology, and he commented that it seemed a matter of “either get on the train or get run over by it!” I rather think that when things change so quickly, it’s impossible for that change to be monolithic, and this allows many small avenues to slip around and over the big changes to present themselves. Humankind is amazingly adaptive, and the cleverest and luckiest will find or create brand new niches and solutions so as to thrive in and bring meaning to this changing environment.

I welcome your thoughts and comments and wild speculation!

Mind and eye candy - Stunning Hubble Telescope images of the Tarantula Nebulaireleased

2012-04-18T15:03:00.000-07:00

A stellar nursery known as R136 in the 30 Doradus Nebula, also know as Tarantula Nebula.( Stocktrek Images/Thinkstock)

Several million young stars are vying for attention in a new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of a raucous stellar breeding ground in 30 Doradus, a star-forming complex located in the heart of the Tarantula nebula (Reuters)

An image from NASA''s Hubble Space Telescope of a vast, sculpted landscape of gas and dust where thousands of stars are being born, July 26, 2001. The star-forming region, called the 30 Doradus Nebula, has the largest cluster of massive stars within the closest 25 galaxies. (Photo Courtesy of NASA/Getty Images)

So you want a personal-sized helicopter in your back yard? World's smallest one-man helicopter

2012-04-17T10:22:00.001-07:00

The GEN H-4 holds the record as the world's smallest working co-axial passenger helicopter (See it in action in the video below!) The compact helicopter has two rotors (setting another record for smallest at a mere 3.9 meters in length) that turn in opposite directions to maintain stability, and four engines that enable a 30-minute flight with a top speed of about 56 miles per hour.

Yanagisawa at the controls

Japanese engine designer, Gennai "Gen" Yanagisawa, CEO of Gen Corporation invented this ultralight one-man helicopter.

Now 75 years old, Yanagisawa created the first version of the engine that would eventually evolve to power the GEN H-4 in the early 80s. After 5 years of work on the development of this new engine he had established one of the best power-to-weight ratios available in the world.

"I hope someday this can be used just like a scooter" Gen Yanagisawa

The obvious application was to use it in aviation where the low weight-to-power ratio would be of the greatest advantage, but it is only recently that he has developed the ideal use for it in this new ultra- light helicopter. (The total empty weight of this helicopter is only 155 lbs!)

In Japan strict flight regulations apply, however, as an ultra-light aircraft the GEN H-4 can be flown without a pilot's license in the United States.

Controls In front of the pilot attached to the control bar is the control panel with the throttle (altitude control), tachometer, ignition power, starter and yaw switches. The tools necessary for flight do not seem like much because they aren't. Controlling the GEN H-4 is reportedly very easy. If you want to go forward, you pull the control bar toward you. If you want to go to the right, you move it to left, and want to go left, move it to right. Of course, you can reverse the helicopter - you only have to push it forward. The rise and descent are controlled by the throttle. If you push the throttle lever, GEN H-4 goes up, you let it, GEN H-4 goes down. If you want to turn to the right or left, you push yaw-control-switch by right hand.

Yanagisawa has sold five GEN H-4s in Japan and two in the U.S. for recreational use. The helicopters sell for about $57,140.

Initially they were also available as a kit, but due to lack of dealerships outside of Japan, they are unable to provide maintenance or training services to potential buyers. With this in mind, along with the ability to bring down the price through mass production they are currently seeking partnerships with distributors abroad. Currently, helicopters may be purchased for $200,000 Japanese yen (shipping included).

Solowheel personal casual urban transport

In another interesting foray into single person transportation, there is the Solowheel - a ground-based personal mover that is easy to use, maneuverable through indoor or outdoor settings, light and highly portable.

Man Controls Bionic Hand with his Mind

2012-04-16T18:10:00.003-07:00

24 year old year old Austrian, Patrick, opted to have his non-functioning hand that was injured in a workplace accident amputated and replaced by a bionic hand he controls by thought alone.

"I think it was very cool - I did not do things with my hand for three years and then you put on the new hand and one moment later, you can move it. It's great."

The following video shows him demonstrating his bionic hand as he pours a glass of water and ties his shoes.

Amputee Patrick demonstrates his new bionic hand

This sort of mind control of bionic limbs is referred to as Brain-Machine Interface (BMI), and ranges from the non- invasive: using biofeedback to control movement either by having the subject learn to recognize and alter his own brainwaves or by having an algorithm that recognizes the waves associated with specific movements and then responds accordingly; to the invasive- where electrodes are implanted directly into the brain for more nuanced and accurate feedback.

For a month, 26 year old Italian Pierpaolo Petruzziello had his amputated arm connected to LifeHand, a robotic limb developed as part of an extensive five-year, three million dollar research project funded by the European Union, carried out at the biorobotics lab at University Campus Bio-Medic o in Rome. The experiment's goal was to allow him to sense and control the arm with his thoughts.

This BMI was minimally invasive- results were achieved by implanting four electrodes in his left arm to create electrical impulses to stimulate the nerves that remained above the amputation site. Pierpaolo found that if he utilized the "phantom limb" side effect (a sensation common to amputees of perceiving that they still have their missing limb), he could eventually move the bionic hand by thought alone, by imagining he was moving his own no-longer-existing hand. After Petruzziello recovered from the microsurgery he underwent to implant the electrodes in his arm, it only took him a few days to master use of the robotic hand. By the time the experiment was over, the hand obeyed the commands it received from the man's brain in an impressive 95 percent of cases.

"It's a matter of mind, of concentration. When you think of it as your hand and forearm, it all becomes easier."- Petruzziello

Peiropaolo talks about learning to control his bionic hand with his mind

Nike's sporty branded prosthetic leg

While engineers and doctors are working on the responsiveness of prosthesis, designers are working on their aesthetics- coming up with designs that range from sporty or cyber-cool, to refined and feminine. Nike has gone as far as to come up with a Nike branded prosthetic leg, and it seems that prosthesis are rapidly progressing from simple medical corrective devices to personal fashion statements, in the same way eyeglasses have before them. Another innovation that may drive this trend is the meteoric growth of 3-D printing technology, which makes a "wardrobe" of differently styled prosthesis a newly affordable option.

"I predict that as we march into this 21st century, the changes we'll see in prosthetic designs [will be that] the artificial prosthetic will become more intimate with the biological human body. There will be a mergence, if you will. The prosthesis will be attached to the body mechanically by a titanium shaft that goes right into the residual bone, wherein you can't take the artificial limb off. Another intimate connection will be electrical. The nervous system of the human will be able to communicate directly with the synthetic nervous system of the artificial limb."
-Hugh Herr
Double amputee, director of the Biomechatronics Group at the MIT Media Lab, and leading bionic designer

"SenseTable" - Interactivity beyond the touchscreen

2012-04-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

What if touchscreens could use tactile 3-D objects representing concepts, that you could then move around freely in a natural and organic way to play with the information? They can!

The Sensetable prototype was originally conceived at the MIT Media Lab and has since been developed for "robust and affordable" real-world applications by Patten Studio, who's slogan is "We design and build things you can touch.".

Below James Patten, of Patten Studio demonstrates this new dimension to touchscreens on video.

Also out of MIT, and poised to be snatched up for commercial development, is an interactive whiteboard; which takes abstract drawn concepts made of simple lines and lets them act out what would be their natural course in the real world.

MIT's Digital Drawingboard

For instance, one could draw a pulley system to move a drawn object, and set it to run its course. Should it not meet your objective, you can adjust any of the elements simply by erasing and redrawing them.

It's fairly easy and intuitive for humans, who have evolved visually, to "eyeball' a system and understand that, say, if one of the arms was a bit longer it would make the trajectory work; however it's very difficult to do the same thing using only thew abstractions of mathematical formulas.

This moving towards making tech adapt to how we work, rather than trying to force ourselves to adapt to technology is clearly the way of the future, as exemplified in Google's soon-to-be-released augmented reality glasses. As this approach takes hold, the more mindfully human-centered interface should serve to make our interactions with tech progressively grow ever more natural and effortless as they flow through our daily lives.

Touch screen cadaver for a virtual dissection table

2012-04-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

Jack Choi, founder of Anatomage, demonstrates a powerful tool for training medical students, many of whom don't have access to cadavers for first-hand experience: a stretcher-sized multi-touch screen of the human body that lets you explore, dissect and understand the body's parts and systems.

“If these images are uncomfortable to you or disturbing to you, that means we did the right job.” -Choi

Easily visible nerves and tumors

In a reversal of Jack Choi's concept of creating an anatomical model that looks more like a real body, Dr. Quyen T. Nguyen instead uses tech to create a surgical experience with the body appearing more like anatomy illustrations, where nerves and tumors are color-coded (and luminescent!) to the naked eye, for easy recognition and better surgical outcomes.

A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms

2012-04-13T23:02:00.001-07:00

Architect Gary Chang designed his 344 square foot apartment in space-challenged Hong Kong to be able to change into 24 different designs, by using an ingenious system of eco-friendly sliding panels and walls, which he calls "the Domestic Transformer" .

See video of the amazing transformations

Plot of designer and architect Gary Chang's wall system

Kenetic building facades by Ned Kahn become fantastic moving sky and water sculptures

2012-04-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

WIND AND AIR

Wall ripples with the wind

California designer, Ned Kahn, creates innovative kinetic materials with his building facades that allow them to respond to and evoke natural elements. In 2002, he worked with the staff of Technorama, the major science center in Switzerland, and their architects, Durig and Rami, to create a facade for the building which is composed of thousands of aluminum panels that move in the air currents and reveal the complex patterns of turbulence in the wind.

Video shows Technorama Facade moving and flowing based on wind patterns

Articulated Cloud - Pittsburgh Childrens Museum, Pittsburgh, PA. 2004

Composed of thousands of translucent, white plastic squares that move in the wind, the artwork is intended to suggest that the building has been enveloped by a digitized cloud.

WATER

The Tipping Wall is an art piece by Ned Kahn and is located at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. The artwork is a surface treatment on a cooling tower in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands. The Tipping Wall, located at the cooling tower adjacent to the southern end of the hotel features 7,000 mechanical polycarbonate tipping water channels on a large glass reinforced concrete wall about the size of a basketball court. Water running down the glass reinforced concrete wall will splash out and animate the white tipping channels which will be supported by stainless steel pins. The channels are supported by ball bearing so that they can tip. As each channel fills with water, it must "decide" to tip either left or right, like a seesaw and spill water into either of the two channels below it. Thus the entire array becomes an interrelated web of water decisions. Water will be recovered at the catchment area below the tippers and re-circulated to the distribution trough..

Video shows reflected ripples moving up the building facade

Water ripples spread up theTempe Center for the Arts, Tempe, AZ while mirrors create random sparkles like light hitting the surface of water

Patterns reveal what sound looks like

2012-04-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

What does a note look like? Sand reveals intricate oscillation patterns...